A spot of gardening perhaps? The weather was nice enough to grab some time outside. Maybe you met a friend for drinks or even went on holiday now the kids are off.

Me, I started a ‘war’. A ‘war’ between supporters of two football clubs, namely Newcastle United and Aston Villa.

You may not have read too much about it because the television channels, for reasons best known to themselves, choose to concentrate on that minor skirmish in the Middle East.

This battle was actually serious. And it was all my fault.

What I did was to mention that Christian Benteke had been suggested as a possible target for Newcastle, but if that was a non-starter, then the club should be looking to sign someone like him.

I know, I know. All that invading Poland stuff pales into insignificance to such idle speculation.

The mention of Benteke was buried in the piece. I thought it was pretty clear given where it appeared that this wasn’t anything close to a news story, rather something of a throwaway line.

Thanks to Twitter, in the time it takes to say, “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength,” it all kicked off big time.

That’s a bit of George Orwell there. Always good to quote him in a piece about football.

Villa fans did not like the fact their star player had been linked to a club they really don’t like. I am not sure where this hatred began, but it’s real enough.

And so began a rather tiresome series of exchanges that didn’t really rise above the ‘my dad is bigger than your dad’ level of debate.

“You’ve started a war,” was actually quoted to me because some people, most of whom hide behind pseudonyms, swore at other people over the internet.

One guy was really abusive, calling me all sorts of names. His twitter handle informed us that he was, “Newcastle season ticket holder and im (sic) f****** hench,”

He then described himself, and I am not making this up, as liking to go to the toilet with the door open. Classy guy. It does hurt when such sophisticates criticise. It was like that time Bernard Levin pulled me up for my man-by-man markings.

Football fans can be a funny lot. Maybe they get angry at food banks, inequality, the never-ending deaths in real war zones. It’s just that their real ire seems to be saved up for when another club is linked to one of their players.

And this childish small-mindedness does depress me. Everybody hates. Newcastle, Sunderland. Villa, the Scousers, Mancs and Londonders. Nobody gets on. At least when it comes to their favourite sport.

And then something truly dreadful happens. A plane is blown out of the sky with two of our own, Liam Sweeney and John Alder, on it, and people become human beings again.

Sunderland fans, who have been a credit to their club, don’t think twice about donating to the fundraising effort in memory of the guys. Fans from clubs such as Manchester City and Tottenham, just two I noticed, left messages of condolence on our website. A reminder to me and everyone else that the ordinary footie fan is, in fact, a pretty decent sort.

Rivalries help to make our game what it is.

Nobody wants to sanitise football any more than has been. However, let’s all take a deep breath and stop being so angry and saying words like ‘war’ with regards to some transfer story.

And try to remember that football is the one thing in this hard old life that is supposed to be fun, and hating someone because they wear a different colour scarf is ridiculous.